Children of the Dead: 100 Themes
by YamiPaladinofChaos
Summary: Being killed can make you grow up too fast sometimes. Kohaku, Rin, and the understanding death brings you. Written for the IY no Kakera 100 themes challenge.
1. Start

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, who belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. This will hold for the rest of the drabbles in here. **_

Author's Notes: Written for the iy no kakera 100 themes set 2.

_**Start**_

At the start, he couldn't quite figure her out. She was chatty and bright and the complete antithesis to what he was, dead and dark and blind.

At the start, she didn't seem him properly, hidden as he was in the shifting, daunting shadows of the corner. Like all children, she poked and prodded curiously, eager to find out what this new thing was.

He didn't rise to the bait all at once. Being killed from behind often taught you the value of caution and the wisdom of distrust. Slowly, cautiously-like a child- he bit, ready to pull back at the slightest hint of violence.

Still, the bait was tasty and sweet- he didn't remember ever eating watermelon before.

It made him regret, even for a moment, that he didn't have memories.

The juices ran down his throat, rich and silky, greater and more potent than the gruel and water Naraku fed him on. His tongue lapped it hungrily, finally able to taste something other than smoke and blood and poison in the air. The sweet drowned out the taste of dirt and bones that had lingered in his mouth.

She smiled at him. No one had smiled at him like that before- that woman in the fog had tears and sorrow in her eyes, and if anyone else had looked at him in any other way, he didn't remember.

It didn't seem all that bad at the moment.

She smiled at him in a way "not-exactly-but-similar" to the way she smiled as Sesshomaru. It was happy and pleased but at the same time lacked the reverence and innocent gratitude of the smiles in tribute to her youkai lord.

He thanked her then- his words were short and his voice felt rusty and unused- the opposite of his weapon.

As he spoke, he realized he felt a little better.

It wasn't much.

But it was a start.


	2. Scar

_**Scar**_

There are several scars on his body, he's not quite sure he ever wants to know where they came from. They're pockets in his skin, tiny furrows that are needle thin and healed over with the corrupt magic of the Shikon no Tama. And in the center, behind his heart and behind his spine is the white scar where a shard lay.

It is the symbol of his servitude- his utter fealty to Naraku.

There are slight scars on her body, and she remembers all too well how she got them- amidst howls and snarls and spit and fangs, shrieking and gasping as her flesh was ripped from her and her lifeblood spilling out onto the ruthless dirt to be lapped up as drink. They are healed and faded, resurrection made possible by the Sword of Heaven.

They are the reminder of her debt to a youkai lord and the past she shed.

The years have worn the scars down to barely visible traces on the flesh, yet they remain as they always do- invisible reminders to him, buried memory for her.

He wishes his forgotten memory was as nice as hers but its probably, _definitely_ not and he hates it, hates it because he's got not choice but to hate what he's forgotten and what he fears in remembrance.

But when she smiles at him with careless ease and her hands trace those scars and he runs his lips over her own marks, he finds it doesn't really matter because it's _over and in the past._

When she touches the white mark on his back and smiles and kissed him fully, he is always reminded of one simple fact.

It's still just a scar.


	3. A Woman's Clothes

_**A woman's clothes**_

A woman's clothes, Kohaku decided, more often than naught, decided the woman.

After all, Sango's clothes changed when she changed. When she was homely and lovely and demure, living with the monk, she had on plain, normal clothes that were loose and far from battle ready.

When she became a taijiya she had on a snug, black armor that he knew all too well- his own was rusting in a storage room, a buried body. Then she was fierce and determined and ready to slay- the image of tears and fog and blade still rings in his mind.

The first time he had seen her, she had worn bright colors, sharp and contrasting against the dim hut and its lonely candlelight. No matter the situation, she was always wearing the brightest, most colorful clothing possible.

"Are you listening to me?" Rin asked impatiently, tapping her foot irritably as she looked at him expectantly.

Kohaku nodded distantly. "Yeah..." he agreed absently. His eyes wandered lazily over her.

"Well... what do you think?" she asked, doing a small spin as to show off for him.

"It looks... different." Kohaku acquiesced carefully, meeting her brown eyes.

"Different? What does that mean?" Rin questioned challengingly, arching her eyebrow.

"Um... it means you look... different?" he offered nervously, feeling a trickle of sweat running down his back. Words had never been his strong suit, in this life or the last.

Rin gauged him for a few moments and Kohaku began to feel more and more uneasy. After a while, she smiled. "Alright... you're off the hook for now, mister." She twirled, letting the material waft in the wind. "Besides, I do so love this yukata."

The clothes make the woman, after all, and if Kohaku misjudged what they made her into, he realized, he would have probably received the cold shoulder- and a deathly glare from a certain youkai lord- for a few weeks.


	4. Bet

Sango watched with amusement as Kohaku twitched, once, twice, and then nearly dropped his chopsticks when Kirara rubbed against his leg. She caught her husband's eye, exchanging a simple _Well, well, what's this?_ look

Coughing purposefully, her ever crafty husband spoke first. "Kohaku... is something the matter?" Miroku's voice was laced with a sly undertone that Sango had heard many a time used against Inuyasha.

His brother-in-law nearly jumped out of his skin, if it were possible. "N-No!" Kohaku's voice practically cracked and came out in a squeak. "What- what could possibly be wrong?" He laughed nervously.

Miroku merely stared at him, watching him even as he lifted a cup of sake to his lips. "I see." He murmured sagely, taking a small sip, and then placing the cup back down. "Kohaku... did something happen when you took Rin to the festival?" he asked slyly.

Kohaku went beet red and Sango fought the urge to make proud sisterly squeals and hug her brother until he went blue.

"Because you simply have seemed distracted ever since then..." Miroku trailed off, smiling blankly. Sango barely controlled the urge to laugh.

"I..." Kohaku's face was so red that it matched Inuyasha's garb.

Sango could not resist anymore, and rolled her eyes, reminiscing about having to deal with a moping Inuyasha after his fights with Kagome. "Oh, Kohaku. There's nothing to be ashamed about. Rin is a perfectly nice girl,"

"With a taiyoukai lord for a guardian." Miroku finished, and there was a mischievous gleam in the monk's eyes as Kohaku went stiff as a board. "Perhaps, my dear, it is not that your brother has offended Rin, so much as he is afraid of repercussions from Sesshomaru-sama." As Kohaku seemed to go whiter than a ghost, Miroku felt that his idea was confirmed.

"No need to be ashamed, Kohaku," Miroku began, swinging a brotherly arm around the young boy's shoulders. With a wistful sigh, the arm pulled the boy closer. Kohaku looked decidedly uncomfortable and redder than Inuyasha's demon form eyes. "All men have these urges... but you must learn to control them, Kohaku."

Sango made a disbelieving cough. This, coming from the man whose loving whispers consisted of "One more go?"

"I didn't!" Kohaku denied, his voice coming out less angry and more like a frightened, embarrassed squeak. "I didn't do anything!"

"If you didn't do anything, why are you so red?" Miroku asked, and only years of not laughing at Inuyasha's love-lorn antics kept him from sniggering like a snarky teenager.

"Ijustkissedherthat'sall." Kohaku muttered, and Sango couldn't help herself.

"Oh Kohaku, that's wonderful!" Sango practically _squealed_, wrapping herself around her baby brother and hugging him tightly. "You might have been the fastest out of all of us to show affection!"

Miroku coughed, looking a bit put out. "Well, if I may interject, my family has always-"

Sango gave him her patented "You're-Pushing-It-So-Shut-Up" glare, used when Miroku had not yet made a complete perverted jackass of himself.

"But Sango! Now she's going to hate me and then Sesshomaru-sama is going to kill me for even touching Rin!" Kohaku complained, somehow able to get air to his lungs past Sango's enthusiastic hug.

"I'm sure she won't mind. Rin likes you very much, Kohaku!" Sango assured him, smiling with almost maternal pride.

"Are you sure?" Kohaku asked, sounding rather dubious.

"I'd ask if you were blind, but I've dealt with Kagome and Inuyasha." Sango muttered, ruffling her brother's hair gently. "But yes. Rin likes you."

Kohaku smiled slightly, still blushing to the roots of his hair.

Over his head, Sango looked over at Miroku.

Miroku smiled.

After all, Inuyasha owed him three jugs of sake.


	5. Wish

Rin hummed a tune, one whose origins she has forgotten (except for the bare trace of soft, sweet darkness of Home and warm, enveloping arms of a mother), her small, calloused hands gently scraping the cool, star kissed rock.

Jaken stood off to the side prickishly, trying his best to look bored as he pointedly looked away from the girl he had been charged to look after.

Absently, she wound another flower, this one fresh and young, around a much older and worn, but no less beautiful flower, moving her hands swiftly and with practiced ease. Her eyes weren't watching her flower chain (which was really something she did out of habit more than anything), but tracking stars.

Idly, she tries naming the stars, but soon gives up.

She doesn't know enough names.

And she very much doubts Sesshomaru-sama would appreciate his name being used across the sky, especially since _he_ is much brighter and more unreachable than any star.

"_Stars are those we love who have gone up to watch over us," _a dusty, warm voice like an old, but loved blanket covers her ears and Rin smiles.

When she was smaller, she remembers (what came before Death) wishing on stars, praying that those words were true.

She stopped wishing after she got Sesshomaru-sama.

But tonight, she remembers something that came after Death, after Sesshomaru-sama. She remembers uncertain brown eyes and a boy who didn't remember _anything_ (which was impossible to her, since Rin believed that someone had to remember _something_, or they weren't alive).

She doesn't know why she remembers, but hopes that he remembers her.

That, she believes, might just be worth wishing on a star again.


	6. Destiny

Kohaku doesn't believe in Destiny.

In fact, one would go so far as to say he _defies_ Destiny. Or at least, he'd like to think he does.

One of the side effects of being resurrected, to him, is that you have to stop believing in mortal quibbles like Destiny, Fate, and the like.

He doesn't think it was Destiny that brought him into this world, that Destiny chose him to be one of those who came to Naraku's web, that he was chosen to murder his father and those people who were as good as uncles and brothers to himself, that he was chosen to be reborn.

Frankly, its because if he did, he'd end up hating Destiny even more than he did Naraku.

And right now, hating Naraku is about the only thing that keeps his body going.

He especially does not think that he met _her_ out of Destiny, some star crossed nonsense about two children with unique (most would say impossible) circumstances that they, and only they, shared (well, there was an undead miko that could be likened to them, but they were different enough from her to be dissimilar).

It was chance.

It was fortune.

It was not Destiny.

But, when he remembers a sweet fruit and a sweeter smile, he will make it his destiny to meet her again.


	7. Gratitude

"Thank you, Sesshomaru-sama." He bowed himself low, exposing his back to the youkai. He had no need of defending himself- this taiyoukai could kill him before he even realized it.

Besides, death was nothing to fear.

Naraku was dead, and that meant that if he died, he would die permanently and never have to return to this horror of a life.

Sesshomaru made a low noise that was dismissive and made it clear that the youkai did not want nor need his gratitude. His singular arm grasped the hilt of Tenseiga as it slid home.

He knew that the youkai meant for that to dismiss him but Kohaku did not move. "You had no need for my existence to continue. Tell me, why did you return to me my life?" his voice lacked the necessary fear and awe that Sesshomaru was accustomed to.

"I don't need to explain myself to you." Sesshomaru said coldly, his words like a keening northern wind, slicing to the bone.

"There is no love lost between you and my sister, and it is clear that you would never have done this for your own brother. So tell me!" Kohaku's persisted. If Sesshomaru killed him, he didn't care.

Sesshomaru let his eyes roll over the boy. "Your eyes haven't changed." The youkai said, instead of answering. "They still beg me for death."

"There is no point in my living." Kohaku replied in a low, dark voice that was decades older than his true age.

"There are others who do not wish your death just yet. Be grateful, boy." Sesshomaru said frigidly, placidly, looking through Kohaku.

Kohaku's eyes darted, just for a moment, toward the dark haired girl at the edge of his vision, who looked at the exchange between the youkai and the boy with an almost distressed interest.

"You did this for her?" he said, before he could think.

Sesshomaru turned away, not giving him another glance or second of the taiyoukai's time.

"You should thank her." Sesshomaru said blandly. His voice sharpened for a second, like a hidden knife springing from the shadows. "She saved your worthless life."

Kohaku bit his lip, nodding. As he turned towards her, she flashed him a bright, toothy smile.

Kohaku's lip curled upwards and, though Sesshomaru didn't see it, his eyes stopped begging for death.


End file.
